


(if you like it) put a ring on it

by Rena



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Idiots in Love, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-02
Updated: 2014-04-02
Packaged: 2018-01-17 22:02:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1404031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rena/pseuds/Rena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles takes a deep breath and then blurts, “I’m gonna marry Derek.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	(if you like it) put a ring on it

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ladylokioftardis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladylokioftardis/gifts).



Stiles skids into the vet’s late on a Friday afternoon when Scott is just about to close up. “Mayday,” he gasps, and Scott immediately drop the broom, looking vaguely panicked.

"Please tell me it’s not the ifrits again?" he says, wincing. Stiles winces, too. Those had been a bitch to deal with. However, they’re not  responsible for his current frazzled state.

"Worse," he moans, buries his face in his hands. "Much, much worse."

"Ah," Scott says. "Nothing supernatural, then?"

"No."

Scott snorts. “I’ll never understand why everyday life situations make you freak out more than supernatural emergencies.”

"I resent that," Stiles sniffs. "I’m not freaking out. I’m as calm as the sea on a windless day, I’m - "

"Sure you are," Scott says, patting his back. Goddammit, he even makes his condescending sarcasm sound like earnest encouragement. "So, what’s up?"

Stiles takes a deep breath and then blurts, “I’m gonna marry Derek.”

Scott’s face lights up like a Christmas tree. “He asked you? Man, I’m so happy for you.” He looks super excited for a second, before his face twists into a pout. “He didn’t tell me he was going to propose. I’m gonna make him eat those Brussels sprouts he hates so much for a month at least, just so you know.”

"He hasn’t asked me," Stiles says. "I’m gonna ask him. And I need your help."

"Dude, you know what to say, right?"

"Yeah but I wanna make it special." Stiles runs his fingers through his hair. "I don’t wanna pop the question while we’re sitting in front of the TV eating take-out or anything, and I’m flat out of ideas. You’re better at romantic stuff than I am. Just look at your proposal to Allison."

The grin is back on Scott’s face in full force, this time with a dreamy edge to it. “You wanna do something like I did for Allison?”

"Hell, no," Stiles says decisively.

When Scott had proposed, he’d created a huge scavenger hunt that took Allison all over town, from the Bowling Alley where they'd had their first date over to the cliff where they used to make out when they had to meet behind their parents’ backs and several other spots until eventually ending at their favourite restaurant. He’d had the chef write “will you marry me?” in chocolate sauce on her dessert plate and only stepped down from his idea  to actually hide the ring inside the dessert because Lydia had drawn up charts about how often people swallow the rings and lectured him about how the risks and the hospital bills weren’t worth it.

It had been perfect. Perfect for Allison and Scott, that is.

Derek has a secret romantic streak and can be the biggest sap in the world when he wants to be, but Stiles knows for a fact that he does not have the patience for a scavenger hunt, and if Stiles proposed in a public place, no matter how sure he is that Derek’ll say yes, he also knows that Derek will  _cut him._

Scott, bless his heart, isn’t offended, just nods, because he knows Derek and he knows Stiles. “Romantic dinner at home?” he suggests.

Stiles scoffs. “If you want me to accidentally set the kitchen on fire.”

Scott grimaces; he knows from long and painful experience that Stiles can’t cook for shit. “I suppose it doesn’t count if I get Allison to cook and deliver the food to you?”

"I don’t think so," Stiles sighs. "And, like, with every other person I could go with the super cliché and overused trail of rose petals and candles, which wouldn’t be original but, you know, romantic, but you  _know_  Derek’s still weird about fire, even if it’s only tea candles,  _and_  he’s allergic to roses.” He groans. “Fuck my life, why do I have to marry the weirdest person in the world?”

"I’m pretty sure  _he’s_  the one who’ll end up marrying the weirdest person,” Scott says.

"I hate you. Where’s your brotherly solidarity?" Stiles whines. "You’re supposed to love me best."

"You know I do."

"Aww, I love you too, bro."

"Okay, so nothing public, nothing with candles or roses," Scott says, counting the points with his fingers. "Something romantic, at home, but not involving dinner. Not too simple, not too cliché."

"Shouldn’t be difficult at all, right?" Stiles sighs again. "But I’ve scoured the internet and nothing, absolutely nothing, felt like it would fit us."

"You do have the most bizarre relationship," Scott muses. "I never thought people actually went from hating each other’s guts to falling in love outside of romantic comedies, but here we are. Hey, why don’t you use  _that_?”

"Use what?" Stiles actually turns to make sure Scott hasn’t sighted anything behind him that gave him an idea. One never knows with Scott - or the contents of the vet clinic. A quick sweep reveals absolutely nothing behind him, and when he turns back to Scott, his best friend is rolling his eyes at him.

"Your relationship progress," he explains. "You’ve come pretty far since you first met, right? So why don’t you try to find a way to represent the progressing stages of your relationship and then ask if he wants to take the next step?"

"You want me to woo Derek with a graph?" Stiles asks.

"Nah, more like….I think when I looked up ideas for proposing to Allison, there was one guy who said he’d put up a red-velvet string in their apartment, from one end to the other, and had, like, letters tied to it talking about the highlights of their relationship, and the he waited at the other end of the ribbon with the ring."

Stiles tilts his head, thinks about it for a moment. “That….that could actually work, I think? Man, you are the best.”

Scott beams. “That’s also why I’m gonna be the  _best man_.”

"Bro, I love you, but your jokes have gone seriously downhill in quality since you became a dad," Stiles tells him.

"It’s the lack of sleep at night." Scott shrugs. "Also, shut up, you’ll get to value dad jokes one day."

"Nah, I’ll always be too cool for dad jokes."

"Stiles, you’re a lot of things, but you’ve never been cool."

"Ugh, shut up."

**∞**

Stiles is a meticulous planner when he wants to be, so he takes his time preparing the notes, weighs the pros and cons of his chicken scratch handwriting, which would be more personal, against a more legible printed option. He’s not always great with written words, unlike Derek, who expresses his feeling better when he can write them down, but he makes an effort to recall very significant step of their way, of telling Derek what it meant for him.

When everything is prepared, he picks a nice, sunny day, takes Derek for a hike, because he’s willing to make sacrifices for the love of his life, okay, and resolves to put up the string and the notes while Derek is hogging the shower afterwards.

He didn’t really take into account how fucking torturous hiking with Derek is. If he didn’t know better, he’d think Derek was trying to kill him. Stiles isn’t unfit by any means, but by the time they reach the highest point of the trail, his muscles are  _screaming_.

Fuck this shit, he wanted to have hot  _we just got engaged_  sex tonight.

He makes Derek give him a piggy-back ride back, and when they finally reach their apartment, Stiles falls into the bed with a low groan. “I hate everything,” he mutters into the sheets.

Derek snickers behind him. “You’re such a  drama queen.”

"Says the guy who somersaults into every dangerous situ-ooh."

Warm hands stroke soothingly over his back, working the knots and kinks out of his muscles, and Stiles completely forgets what he was going to say. In fact, he forgets every rational thought for the next hour or so, while Derek takes his sweet time undressing him and massaging his entire body until it feels like he’s floating, and then, finally, Derek takes his own clothes off and leans over him to kiss him on the lips, soft and sweet.

"God, I really want you to marry me," Stiles sighs and Derek - Derek freezes at the exact same moment that Stiles realises what words just tumbled out of his mouth and flinches.

He’s always waxed poetic about Derek’s hand, and it wouldn’t be the first time he’s proclaimed he should marry one of Derek’s body parts, or his cooking skills, but that was always jokingly. Derek has always scoffed, or kissed Stiles, and never taken it seriously, because it was never meant to be taken seriously. This time, Derek blinks down at him, mouth slack with surprise, and Stiles  _knows_  he listened to his heartbeat and didn’t hear a single skip.

"Shit," he blurts. "Shit, shit,  _fuck_ , I didn’t mean -“

Derek looks like Stiles just punched him in the guts. “Right,” he says, voice rigid, and sits up.

"No!" Stiles yelps, flinging out a hand to catch Derek’s wrist, which is surprisingly hard when he doesn’t have his limbs under full control. "I didn’t mean that I didn’t mean to, you know, uh…"

"Stiles, it’s okay, I get it," Derek says, trying to pull away, and Stiles curls his fingers tighter around his skin.

"No, no you don’t. I was gonna - fuck," he says again, frustration raging inside his body. Just once, he wanted to do something without screwing it up. "No, you know what? No. You’re gonna sit here, stay put, I mean it,  _do not move_ , and I’m just gonna….” He lets go of Derek, then, slides off the bed and sinks to his knees in front of Derek, who stares at him, face unreadable.

So, proposing isn’t really all that hard, right? He’s poured his feelings all over stupid unresponsive pieces of paper over the course of two weeks, he can totally just ask a simple question.

Except now that he’s on the ground in front of Derek, the words won’t come. They won’t come, because Derek is sitting at the edge of the bed, in all his naked glory, and it’s not Stiles’ fault his brain has been conditioned to shut every thought not pertaining to sex completely down at the sight.

"I can’t do it," he admits, miserably. "I can’t do this while staring at your junk, oh my God, I am so sorry."

"Stiles," Derek begins, and God, he looks like he thinks Stiles might try and dump him.

"Don’t," Stiles says and kisses him. "You know what, I refuse to screw this up. This was supposed to be  _special_ , so I’m gonna start from scratch, and I’m gonna do it properly. You - ” he pokes Derek in the chest, “go shower. Don’t freak out. You hear me?  _Do not_  freak out. I’ll know if you do, so don’t. Now skedaddle, I need five minutes for preparation.”

He pauses, then presses another kiss to Derek’s mouth. “I love you,” he says quietly, as earnestly as he can, because Derek is still wearing the face that says he’s fearing impending doom. Derek still looks wary and hesitant when he trudges off to the shower, sweatpants in his hand, but that can’t be helped. As soon as the door closes behind him, Stiles springs into action. He quickly pulls on the first articles of clothing he can find - the underwear is definitely Derek’s, but he couldn’t give less of a fuck - and digs out the ribbon from behind his plaid shirts, the only safe hiding place in their flat. Derek’s doesn’t go near the messy lump of Stiles’ plaid shirts.

It’s a little more difficult than he had planned, finding a good spot to secure the ribbon next to the bathroom door, but eventually he just takes down one of the pictures and ties a knot around the nail. If anything, Stiles has learnt to roll with the punches. He’s only just finished hanging up the other end of the rope when he hears the bathroom door open again.

Even without werewolf hearing, he can hear the slight hitch in Derek’s breath.

The wait is excruciating after that; Derek takes his sweet time reading the notes, and Stiles only has the occasional snort of chuckle to try and judge Derek’s reaction. By the time Derek is rounding the corner into the kitchen, Stiles’ heart feels like it’s beating out of his chest.

He doesn’t sink to his knees again because he’s not sure he’d be able to get up again, and it would probably be undignified to get a cramp while trying to pop the question and then roll on the floor in pain. He just opens the lid of the ring box, revealing two plain but delicate golden bands, and smiles at Derek.

Derek closes the distance between them with three large strides and breathes “ _Yes_ " against his lips before Stiles can even ask the question.

Stiles bitches about Derek ruining his proposal a lot; Derek only ever smirks and reminds Stiles of how colossally  _he_  screwed up, and Stiles is usually more than willing to concede the point. All their friends are torn between being mortified and amused when they hear the story, but Stiles reckons it was fitting for them. After all, their relationship history includes a lot of fuck-ups and things still miraculously working out.

They’re both happy, and that’s all that counts.


End file.
